A letter to dear NeighborTM
Dear NeighborTM: I don’t know you. In fact, we’ve never met.
I’m not the overtly nosy sort, though I do have one of those fisheye cameras that records my front door and all the way out to the sidewalk ... for security purposes and the possibility of viral stardom.
A person can’t be too careful these days or too exposed.
But we’ll get to that later.
I probably wouldn’t recognize you if I bumped into you at the Post Office.
Not that I have any reason to go to a post office, what with the internet being so darn convenient that I can download and print all necessary postage on my home computer.
I love the clean lines of its modern architecture, but I despise waiting in any line that meanders or stands still for too long. It’s not as if I were just any old member of the great unwashed society at large. I’m very busy. But I am relatively new to the community, which is why I joined NeighborhoodTM when an ad popped up on my Instagram, which - fun fact - is also where I acquired my almost circular security camera. Anyhoo... I was happily posting photos from my garden, which you might have noticed looks a thousand percent better than one tended by the poor soul who had previously inhabited our not-so-humble abode, when I noticed the package on MY front porch — the one the Big-NameShipping-Dude delivered to me by mistake, and that I had planned to call about, giving whoever answered the phone an earful about their terrible sense of direction — was missing. My heart palpitated. This violation was worse than the fact that no one in the vicinity had made any effort to congratulate me on my awardwinning blooms. But I digress. I was so shocked by the disappearance that I spent the next three hours reviewing video footage from my security camera, looking for grainy evidence of the culprit.
To my horror, I discovered the trespasser inviting herself up onto my own private patio and having the audacity to peruse the parcel’s shipping label before whisking it away into the back of her soccer-mom van and driving off.
The nerve. In broad daylight, too.
Of course, dear NeighborsTM, I plan on notifying the proper authorities in due time, though I feel it only fitting I should pop in here post-haste and alert the culprit directly by inviting all the other VillagersTM to sharpen their pitchforks. There’s no telling where such a porch pirate will pounce next.
‘Tis open season, so to speak.
Oh sure, the address on the label suggested the recipient lived somewhere on my street, but who in their right mind would just walk such a package to its intended destination?
Of course, I am being rhetorical. Someone paid good money to have the item delivered correctly and professionally. I would not presume to deny anyone a refund for incomplete or negligent service.
Nor do I want anyone traipsing up to my door looking for misdelivered packages without leaving a note, or a kind word about my hostas. How am I supposed to verify their authenticity and their good taste?
The brown-shorted delivery dude went to the wrong house, and he will come back and do his job if it takes four calls and two days of emotional labor here in my virtual NeighborhoodTM.
Also, I’d like to bask in the glow of your righteous indignation on my behalf. I also enjoy how you swarm to my defense when I politely and jokingly tell that one critic who suggests I have been unneighborly, to stay in their lane or go back to Canada.
They assure me that no one is afraid of Canadians so I can’t be xenophobic.
It’s so nice to have Good NeighborsTM. I can’t wait to invite them to my Block Party.
Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.